FRESNO - Dwight Howard took a seat on the bench Sunday, leading the cheers for his new teammates rather than wearing his purple-and-gold uniform for the Lakers' exhibition opener at the Save Mart Center.

When and where he makes his Lakers debut is anyone's guess. His surgically repaired back is sound enough to allow him to practice at something close to full speed, but it's not sufficiently strong enough to let him play in an actual game.

"You're not going to trick me into that one," a smiling Howard told a reporter.

Of course, Howard would rather play than sit, even if for only limited minutes some 200 miles from the nearest NBA arena. The decision to wait until he's at full strength is not a difficult one, however.

"I want to be 100 percent," Howard said before the Lakers faced the Golden State Warriors. "They need me at 100 percent. I didn't come here to play preseason. I came here to win the championship. That's my goal. That's the only thing I'm focused on. I'm going to play when I'm 100 percent."

The Lakers soldiered on without Howard against the Warriors, unveiling their version of the Princeton offense with Robert Sacre, a 7-foot rookie from Gonzaga filling in at center. The rest of the starting five was as it's expected to be later this month.

Steve Nash made his Lakers debut at point guard, announcing his arrival with a crisp cross-court pass to shooting guard Kobe Bryant on an early fast break. Bryant capped the sequence by passing to power forward Pau Gasol for a layup.

Small forward Metta World Peace started things with a steal and a fast break layup for the Lakers' first points 38 seconds into the game.

Coach Mike Brown substituted freely, trying to limit his starters to no more than 20 minutes apiece. If he was concerned about not having Howard, he wasn't about to admit it publicly. He said he would play Howard when Howard can play.

Howard had no worries about learning the offense.

"Everybody's jelling just fine," Howard said. "We understand the way we have to play. The offense is kind of perfect for all of us. We get a lot of jump shots for all of us. We get a lot of post-ups for everybody.

"That's something we all need. We make it easy for ourselves. We have to feed off each other. Guys get easy shots off the pick and roll. We get plays out of the post. However we run the offense, guys should get easy shots."

Adjustment bureau

Bryant won't have the ball in his hands as much as he did last season in Brown's low-post oriented offense, and maybe not as often as during the triangle offense during the years while Phil Jackson was the Lakers' coach.

"I don't know if he's going to have to change his game much," Brown said. "I think he's going to realize he doesn't have to do so much because other guys are going to do different things at different times."